NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. – The thwack of Rory McIlroy's driver making contact with his golf ball was followed by the thud of his club slamming into the turf and a few muttering words that were hard to decipher.

The scene that played out on the fourth tee box of Aronimink Golf Club was indicative of McIlroy’s day. This frustrating, mistake-riddled performance will force the reigning Masters champion to play incredible golf the rest of the way to have a chance at this PGA Championship.

McIlroy shot 4-over 74, seven shots back of the leaders, while hitting just five fairways. Asked to describe his round afterward, McIlroy was brief and blunt:

“S***,” he said.

Typically his superpower, McIlroy’s inability to drive the ball effectively has cost him dearly. After declaring Aronimink a bomb-and-gauge test early in the week, the course fought back and took a gauge out of McIlroy’s confidence. It began on his first hole, the 10th. He missed right of the fairway, drew a horrible lie and could only advance it 70 yards, leading to bogey. The right miss plagued him all day. McIlroy missed right on the fourth, and slammed his driver. He also missed right on the sixth, seventh and ninth holes and bogeyed all of them.

“I'm just not driving the ball well enough,” he said afterward, visibly still frustrated. “It's been a problem all year for the most part. Yeah, I've sort of got, like I miss it right, and then I want to try to correct it. And then I'll overdo it, and I'll miss it left. It's a bit of back-and-forth that way. So that's pretty frustrating, especially when like, I pride myself on driving the ball well.”

It’s relative, of course. McIlroy leads the PGA TOUR in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee this season, though he was right about his Thursday round, specifically. He was well below average off the tee, and, critically, often missed on the wrong sides of the fairway – leaving him little chance to advance it to an ideal spot and get up-and-down for par. On a day that Aronimink showed its teeth, McIlroy was the most prominent player that it took a bite out of.

“I honestly thought I'd figured it out,” McIlroy said. “Coming in here, I hit it well on Sunday at Quail Hollow, and then hit it good at home on Monday. Then even -- obviously I had to curtail the practice round Tuesday, but hit it decent yesterday. Just sort of, once I get under the gun, it just seems like it starts to go a little bit wayward on me.”

The byproduct of those struggles is another underwhelming start to the PGA Championship. He shot 74 in the opening round at Quail Hollow last year, en route to an uncompetitive T47 finish that stifled all his post-Masters mojo. McIlroy said the frustration was similar between Thursday’s round and his first round from a year ago, though last year he was dealt with a last-minute driver switch that threw him off.

McIlroy’s performance has been lacking at the PGA Championship since it moved from August to May. Since the shift in 2019, McIlroy has finished no better than seventh. He’s facing an uphill battle to better that now.

The field hasn’t gotten too far ahead of him. Scoring was difficult at Aronimink on Thursday. McIlroy wasn’t its lone victim. He was just its most surprising.